Multi-function Solutions (MFS) / ISE (Integrated Solutions Engineered)
Whether it is autonomous vehicles, 5G-enabled devices, sensors creating an internet of connectivity, or home routers, high-speed and high-volume data transfer is the signature of today's advanced technology. However, with the advent of faster speeds within increasingly denser packages, design engineers are presented with the unprecedented challenges of signal interference and heat dissipation.
New generations of electronic products operate at higher frequencies and employ more powerful Integrated Circuits/System on Chips (ICs/SOCs) that better facilitate enhanced data transfer capabilities. They may benefit from more power through the application of additional components, but suffer an even greater potential for electromagnetic signal interference (EMI). The extra components serve as a double-edged sword since they also generate more heat, thus creating the demand for faster, more reliable heat dissipation.
The question of creating optimal MFS not only relies on mitigating EMI and managing thermal challenges, but requires mechanical and environmental durability, space constraints, and lightweight designs. Enclosures are not only simple, aesthetic housing, but functional, cost-effective parts that address such concerns while simultaneously protecting devices and systems from potentially harsh environments.
Effectively solving signal interference and heat dissipation challenges in tight spaces
The need for higher data transfer rates and greater bandwidth have compelled packaging and interconnect designers to prioritize densification. This creates the need to dissipate more heat in smaller spaces. Laird ISE's new Integrated Solutions portfolio addresses such ubiquitous challenges with a unique range of multi-functional solutions (MFS) and products from electrically conductive fabrics to board-level shield covers with thermal transfer capabilities.
Combining our decades-long experience and expertise in EMI products, precision metals, RF absorbers, and thermal solutions, along with the latest material and manufacturing innovations, we sparked a new way of thinking that results in a variety of value-added solutions. Laird's Integrated Solutions Engineered (ISE) significantly reduces your total cost of ownership and maintains premium performance while also lowering your design iteration efforts.
Industries that require multi-functional solutions
Laird ISE cultivates a synergistic relationship with our customers. The purpose of MFS is to solve customer pain points in a competent and efficient manner, which is why we prefer to initiate the process as early as possible. A key benefit of our approach is to determine what areas require the most attention in order to achieve the most optimal results. This simply is not the case with many other suppliers who operate via quote to print. Our thermal dissipation and EMI solutions are used by industries such as:
• Telecommunications
• Data Communications
• Automotive
• Consumer Products
• Medical
• Industrial
We serve as design partners in developing reliable solutions for the most advanced technologies. Laird ISE has many standard products that are turnkey, such as our cools, graphite, and foam products. For instance, if a customer advises that they need a product that must perform X, Y, or Z, specific solutions could typically be found on our shelves where our design engineers can cut to size or handle minor modifications. However, we also have our co-engineered shields division, which consists of completely custom metal stamping to address the design specifications of a product with particular challenges.
Common Integrated Solutions
Laird ISE stands at the forefront of MFS with the use of our in-house teams that focus on each product to combine EMI and technologies that mitigate thermal challenges. We leverage our internal technology that is engineered to handle a higher influx of data while administering heat dissipation in order to meet various megatrends. Our MFS consist of soft EMI products, conductive films, Fabric-over-Foam (FOF), and thermal products, as well as both stamped and custom metals for EMI shielding, EMI absorbers, and inductors.
When solving the challenges of EMI and thermal transfer, Laird ISE's most common integrated solutions involve an optical module, which is a compact assembly that includes optics, a digital micromirror device (DMD), illumination (LEDs), and associated mechanics. For example, telecommunications and data communications companies struggle with issues of moving more data than ever before. This produces the challenge of more frequency noise while also generating more heat. Fortunately, our products are designed to manage the demands of an immense flow of data while reducing heat in small spaces.
To solve complex problems of a particular market, we combine our technologies together to create distinctive and efficient solutions for customers. Our most common integrated solutions vary depending on each individual market and its particular demands. Generally, the most common integrated solutions consist of:
• CoolZorb
• Foam Gaskets
• ReZorb
CoolZorb
CoolZorb functions similarly to thermal gap pads and performs two primary functions: EMI absorption and thermal transfer. To this effect, CoolZorb is particularly useful once you exceed 10 GHz due to its first-rate thermal transfer properties. As telecommunications and data center industries process more data, the frequency of their connectors (optical modules) increases, as well. More data throughput means higher frequency noise and heat generation. Therefore, CoolZorb is uniquely positioned to solve such problems along with fronting the load at a higher frequency. In fact, Laird ISE experienced a steady market growth as a result of customers replacing their traditional thermal gap pads with CoolZorb.
Foam Gaskets
The Graphite over Foam (GOF) thermal gasket product is a compressible gasket that is optimized for transferring heat over large distances. Our team of engineers can also design the GOF to be electrically conductive so that it gives customers both EMI shielding and thermal transfer in a very soft, compressible gasket. It is similar to our Fabric-over-Foam (FOF) gasket family of products with its thermal transfer capabilities and is particularly useful for consumer electronics and small devices where there is limited space to place both a thermal dissipation component as well as an electrically conductive gasket. When considering an area as small as 5mm x 5mm wide, for instance, there is little room to perform both functions. With this type of application, our design engineers can place a repeatedly compressible gasket that will manage heat and EMI.
As a foam product, the GOF is very useful in the automotive industry. It is repeatedly compressible so it can handle the impact of NBH and its vibrations upon a vehicle, while also affecting reliable thermal transfer without outgassing your silicone bleed. Radome Auto is specifically designed for automotive radar units. With it, we include our state-of-the-art absorber technology upon the radar to enhance its capabilities.
ReZorb
The ReZorb product is an effective new technology that enhances the coming megatrends for the varying levels of self-sufficiency for autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles utilize radar units that appear as black squares hidden under the plastic front bumpers for aesthetic purposes. This blockage could obstruct the signal from reaching the radar units and produce noise. ReZorb is an anti-radar reflection bracket that allows you to mount a recess of radar units within the car without experiencing negative effects.
ReZorb allows you to receive clean signals for your radar unit and safety systems in autonomous vehicles by utilizing bracket technology that maintains the radar to the car. A bracket is already utilized to hold the radar to the car but ReZorb operates one that is both structural and EMI absorbing with radar frequencies of up to 99.7% that are absorbed by the bracket.
The Challenges of Designing Multi-Functional Products
Smaller Spaces
As devices advance, transferring more data at higher frequencies with additional powerful processors, they inevitably discharge even more heat. There is a demand for solutions that can handle such devices while maintaining a constant temperature. Our products are designed as MFS that can manage high temperatures and fit in compact-sized packages that typically require extra space.
With the challenges of operating at higher frequencies, we reimagine solutions based on products already available. For example, the cameras used by autonomous vehicles operate at a high fidelity with large amounts of information processed and live-transferred. All of that data must be quickly transmitted from the cameras to the central processing self-driving brain of the vehicle. This MFS results in a nexus between sealing the EMI into the camera and mitigating the heat that it creates within smaller packages.
5G mmWave
As market trends demand high-speed and high-frequency transmission, the switch to 5G mmWave will enable faster download speeds and quicker response times for users — at around 29 and 39 GHz. With 4G networks, traditional EMI shielding was sufficient at 5 GHz and under, which was more than enough to handle the demands of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. However, as we reach Wi-Fi 6 at 6 GHz, it becomes much more difficult to seal all EMI problems within a single unit.
Now, we are presented with the challenge of adding absorbers or more advanced EMI shielding to products. This creates more complex challenges by taking up more room that could affect the traditional design of previous products in order to accommodate 5G mmWave, 77 GHz with automotive radar, and autonomous systems for vehicles, such as cameras and LIDAR units. Such advancements necessitate more MFS to get the most out of a product's design in a similar-sized package while combining thermal and EMI performance.
The blockage of signals by physical barriers creates another obstacle for the 5G network. 5G mmWave does not pass through walls or plastics as easily as lower frequencies where even a cell phone case inhibits its signals. Physical barriers block your antenna and therefore affect its overall performance. Laird ISE is resourceful with the materials that we use in conjunction with 5G mmWave from implementing low dielectric constant material to even devising an area where an opening should be constructed.
Research and Development (R&D)
Laird pulls from a deep well of experience in R&D, taking various products and technologies and combining them into one cohesive solution. There is a vast differentiation between simply taking products and slapping them together, and leveraging the combination of technologies for the purpose of MFS. Our engineers expertly design products with the latest technological trends to develop a solution for the challenges that our customers face.
Laird ISE is your one-stop-shop: from simulations/modeling to co-engineering, co-designing, and high-quality manufacturing. Challenge us to trust us.
Explore Solutions:
• Metal-ISE:
Thermally and electro-magnetically enhanced die-cast, stamped, deep-drawn precision metal parts at board level (e.g. board-level shields and RF absorbers) or subassembly level (e.g. automotive heatsinks).
• Structur-ISE:
Highly durable mechanically stable solutions at enclosure and I/O interface level (e.g. radomes, using state-of-the-art injection molding or forming capabilities).
• Hybrid-ISE:
Homogeneous single layer or heterogeneous multi-layer polymeric solutions offer multi-functional signal interference mitigation and heat dissipation (e.g. a thermally conductive RF absorber).
• Textil-ISE:
Electrically conductive fabrics enabling sensor, switch, and heating functionality (e.g. selectively plated stretch fabric).